3 apps that will make your high schooler's college visit easier

By Steve Fox, Digital First Media

Posted:
02/26/2014 06:03:30 AM MST

Updated:
02/26/2014 06:03:41 AM MST

College visits can be daunting, but these apps are here to help. (Thinkstock)

My son turns 16 this week. It's one of those milestone birthdays for him – and a reminder for me that he's a young man with an eye to the future. That future holds many hopes and dreams – including talk of where to go to college.

This is usually the time of year that I start seeing the prospective groups of college students beginning to tour the UMass Amherst campus, where I teach. They're not hard to spot. They're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and usually travelling with their parents.

And, they usually get lost.

“Lost Parent Syndrome” usually consists of parents standing and pointing at a map and sometimes spinning around in circles trying to figure out exactly where they are on a very large campus.

In an effort to ease the process, universities are increasingly setting up apps for the college-visiting experience. At UMass Amherst there is a guide (iTunes, Android) available to visitors to help avoid the need for silly paper maps. The guide includes a “building finder” as well as a map to the parking lots on campus, along with a list of helpful links ranging from the academic calendar to the UMass dining page.

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At my alma mater, The University of Arizona, the mobile app (iTunes, Android) allows you to determine your spot on campus and find specific buildings. The app also features maps to self-guided tours and a link to courses. I went ahead and checked out their journalism courses, which gave incredible detail, including the name of the professor teaching the course as well as their phone number and email address.

A good number of universities have their own personal apps – finding them is just a Google search away.

This is all helpful information for high school students and their parents as they begin their college searches. The process can be an intimidating one, but the key to mitigating stress levels is to find a way to break the experience down to a personal level, and many of the apps out there are successful in doing that.

Just being able to find your way around a huge campus can be a daunting task. But being able to contact a professor and set up a talk to chat about the program your child is interested in can be a huge help in making a large campus small.

But, what about the first steps in deciding which campuses to visit?

I have a close friend whose daughter is beginning to look at colleges and is in the process of sending away for brochures. But in today's electronic world, there are apps and websites available that help streamline the process a bit. And now that traditional rankings by U.S. News & World Report are no longer available prior to 2007, we find others are quickly filling that space.

Here's a quick summary of some of the resources available out there:

— The Fiske Guide to Colleges. The Fiske Guide, compiled by Edward B. Fiske, the former education editor for the New York Times, is available both in paperback and PDF format and has a mobile application available on iTunes for $19.99. The app offers a “beyond-the-book functionality” which includes the ability to organize application deadlines while exploring the features of schools competing with one another for your child's interest

— College Confidential. This website allows you to help filter your child's college selections by location and suggested areas of study. There is an “Ask the Dean” section which features some basic questions posed by apprehensive high school students and their parents. The site has free mobile applications as well (Android), but the iTunes version has not received favorable recommendations.

— Peterson's College Guide. This is a fairly comprehensive site covering all levels of the college experience, including undergraduate, graduate school and continuing education. Peterson's has free mobile apps (iTunes, Android) but the website is a gold mine of information, including a timeline for parents and students letting both know where the high schooler should be at each point during his or her high school career.

There's a lot more information out there for high schoolers and their parents, you just need to know where to look. Next week, I'll take a look at websites and mobile applications that help sort out the world of scholarships and financial aid.